Could you forgive the goddess who drowned your mother, if forgiving her made you immortal? Pallas is a lonely teen from a backwater village on a forgotten shore. Born a slave like everyone around her, people hate her clothes, her parents...especially her strange name. Pallas doesn’t believe in the gods except to blame them for drowning her mother. But she’s forced to shelve her moody cynicism when she accidentally rescues an obnoxious cat. Suddenly a pawn in a celestial war, Pallas must do the unthinkable – champion the very goddess she hates. Masquerading as a mythic princess, she convinces everyone she’s a child of Atlantis. Jealousy hounds her at every turn as she battles vengeful fanatics, a boorish prince, and a stunningly beautiful princess. Yet nothing can save her from certain doom, when the Volcano god reaches out to slay her. For how can a mortal fight a god? D. C. Belton creates an emotional world as elegant as it is deadly: where mortals fall prey to passionate gods and a slave proves stronger than craven nobility. Visit Pallas at dcbelton.com!

About the Author&colon;

I wrote these books for my daughters. I wanted to share my love of mythology, but also to bolster their self esteem. I raised my daughters to understand that more than ever, there are many paths they can choose. But to avail themselves of these opportunities, they needed to achieve two things; a thorough education and confidence in themselves. Because I wrote this for my daughters, I wanted the novels to be wholesome and true. The temptation to “sauce up” the prose was curbed by a memory in a bookshop in Colorado of an exasperated woman asking if there were any books for teens that weren’t dripping with sex and violence. My work is greatly influenced by that conversation, leading me to create a world where lewdness and danger were tempered by charm and nobility. C.S. Lewis put it best, hoping his readers would, “feel pleasure in works that are delightful and hate the ugly with just distaste.” My writing was also inspired by Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia and her powerful expose about today’s ‘girl poisoning’ culture. Guiding my daughters through adolescence, I saw the need for sturdy, yet realistic role models. I found my modern protagonist in ancient mythology. Having lived three years in the Mediterranean, wandering through the blossoms that caught Persephone’s eye, the grave yet uniquely female Athena captured my imagination. Today’s woman is more empowered than she’s ever been. Scores of female presidents and prime ministers rule around the world. Women are rising to the highest pinnacles of every career-field. Why then do we see so much anorexia and depression, self mutilation and self-destructive behavior, amongst our teenage girls? Why are a quarter of US women on anti-depression medicine? Women in the past were shackled to a very narrow road. Yet they were comforted by a received wisdom of what that road was supposed to look like. Thus, they knew when they’d achieved it. Today’s women enjoy a cornucopia of infinite possibilities. But new freedoms raise new questions. What does satisfaction look like? What are my goals? When can I claim success? I hope Pallas will embolden girls to brave the barriers set before them; not only to conquer the paths they choose, but to calmly put to rest the ones they didn’t. I hope they’ll learn to listen to their souls, in a wholesome way that gives them peace and satisfaction. DC